Saving log - $8 tip box
Spending log - $1.75 coffee
Found money - $0.17 (2 nickels, 7 pennies on sidewalk, road, bus floor) + yesterday $0.05 (various sidewalks)

Not much has been going on - sister got the dutch oven, the no-knead bread recipe with other stuff - a Bad Cat day calendar and a little pocket planning calendar with a plastic cover for rain, and a recipe pamphlet that we got for the beef. Sister is interested in making a similar thing to give to her CSA and farmer's market customers.

Work is getting very, very busy ... and that's nice. Election day was yesterday - I live about 5 blocks from one of the mayoral candidates. Thankfully, Seattle's low key about political publicity. If it snows, beware, that street is one of the least plowable in the city.

Monday
Saving log - $1 tip box
Spending log - $1.75 coffee + $3.29 forks
Found money - $0.01 (chiropractor's office) + $0.01 (Goodwill parking lot) + $0.01 (underneath Safeway vending machine)

Sunday
Saving log - $0
Spending log - $1.90 bagel (free coffee) + $2.90 large iced tea, apple
Found money - $0.02 (floor of Pete's coffee)

Made a nickel the hard way these last two days! Would have thought that the Goodwill parking lot was prime for change finding: very busy, cash business, kids, people shifting money from hand to pocket and leaving in a hurry. I found a penny, was expecting to find much more.

I went to Goodwill again to buy forks. Got 15 for $3. Last April, several co workers complained that the temp staff stole all the forks. I bought 8 forks at Goodwill after the temp staff left. Opened the work silverware drawer in the last few days: one fork. Look in the mirror, thieves. Quit blaming others.

BIL and DH's sister have firmly decided to visit the Oshkosh EAA next year in 2010. "If not now, then when?". I emailed them and invited them to stay at the farmette, and sister emailed them and invited them to the farmette. We'll see. Just a little warning: if you decide not to attend EAA for a day or two, sister will work you in the garden. We joked that we were in a re-education camp.

Sister's birthday yesterday. She got her b-day gift from us but she chided DH: if you are going to use popcorn as a packing material, don't use oil! She and the neighbor at the farmette are getting tomatoes, tomatoes, tomatoes, and squash, squash, squash. She's beginning to be a regular at the Tuesday farmer's market and picked up another customer near the farmette, losing a non-payer in Milwaukee. I suspect that that's the benefit of the farmer's market - advertising to pick up weekly customers.

Yesterday I got my library visit in before the Seattle libraries furloughed for the week.

Kitty is settling in even more. Ate more dry food (at least she's cheap, sister said), and after she begged a little from my plate (I have SUCKER tattooed in cat on my forehead), played for a few minutes with the mouse on a stick, totally DESTROYED the little plastic bag containing catnip that I put on my dresser, explored the kitchen and the tops of the washer and dryer, tolerated a bit of brushing, wants to snuggle on the bad as soon as the lights are down. In other words, a full day, and not that shy. She does have an unusual habit - she is quite the tail swisher when you pet her and you think you better stop otherwise you'll get a claw in your hand...but she doesn't growl or attack. Tail swishing must mean general excitement. Think I will call her V.I.

Tuesday
Saving log - $1 tip box
Spending log - $22 2 baseball tickets
Found money - $0

Monday
Saving log - $0 tip box
Spending log - $20 chiropractor
Found money - $0.01 (Safeway floor)

Yesterday we got the sister's cucumbers, pickling cucumbers, carrots, hot banana peppers, string cheese. Apparently she packed it so tight (her strategy is to stuff the 10$ box) that the original box broke up - the postal service collected everything in a garbage bag, put it in a box, and taped the address from the old box.

Except for one destroyed, squishy cucumber, once everything got a quick rinse it was all right. Carrots (6 inchers - no doubt the ones we planted in June) got sliced lengthwise, laid out in a single layer, doused with a bit of olive oil and salt and roasted at 350F for 20 minutes.

The pickling cucumbers were a challenge - DH doesn't like pickles, and while I like them, I don't love them. I treated the pickling cukes like regular cukes - chopped them into 1/4 in pieces, added salt and let sit 1-2 hours to sweat them, then drain, combine with chopped red onion, chopped banana pepper, two cans of drained garbanzo beans, then dressed with olive oil, lemon juice, parsley.

Its sister's birthday next week, so DH helped me mail off her gift. We tried to pack it properly - no need to add to the USPS's troubles.

Speaking of mail - the one side benefit of the recession is far less mail. No credit offers, few catalogs, only or two neighborhood flyers. For a week or two early this month, it was old times with tons of glossy campaign mail. Now? Nothing yesterday, 2 pieces for DH. I still get most of my stock receipts by mail - while I'm green, I must be light green. I like the idea of not having to remember my password to get my monthly or quarterly info.

Saturday
Saving log - $0 tip box
Spending log - $3.88 coffee, pastry + $23 groceries
Found money - $0

Sunday
Saving log - $0 tip box
Spending log - $3.88 coffee, bagel + $.77 apple
Found money - $0

Another change finding drought. Ah well.

Yesterday was a walking day. All the routes that I thought of I thought, "meh", so it was time for adventure. My route was walking from work in south downtown Seattle (didn't work, just deposited CLEAN gym clothes), through the Pike Market, along Stewart St, Eastlake, then took the Lakeside overpass into Capital Hill, up Broadway, up 10th Street, turned right at Roanoke Park, and walked along south Lake Union (Delmar, Lynn, 19th) along the Montlake cut, nearly 5 miles.

I love map my run, even though I rarely run. Jog maybe, walk mostly. I like my urban hikes. If nothing else, these walks force me to think on my feet. I note the bus routes and where I am, and am learning a lot of new-to-me-arterials. I'm debating whether to keep this to North Seattle only, or use the new light rail to explore some of south Seattle.

Today I did jog my 3 miles and did it in 45 min 9 sec, so very close to the 44 min goal my trainer re-set for me. At the very, very end though I did feel a sharp pain in my knee, so discretion being the better part of valor, I took it slow and took the bus back.

I looked in the freezer - with our influx of beef (and maybe duck) in the next few weeks - it was time to use the freezer food. I bought the last cheap cherries of the season, picked up several peaches for .99/lb, picked a couple of pints of blackberries hiding underneath our cherry tree, and we had a couple of plums to get rid off. The cherry, peach, plum, blackberry is the perfect cooked fruit combination - along with that tube of biscuits hiding in the freezer - it meant cobbler.

Sister called and asked us how our cucumber situation was. We are getting cucumber and carrots. The tomatoes that we planted at the farmette in June are beginning to come on. Turns out that there is a Tuesday Farmer's market 6 mi from the farmette with no participation fee for the growers, so sister tried it out. She sold $40 at the market but better yet, she picked up a weekly customer so close to the farmette that sister doesn't have to deliver, customer can come out. And the customer promises to tell her friends.

Saving log - $3 tip box
Spending log - $10 lunch + $11 lb of coffee

Had lunch with the gang today, and since I seem to have only one restaurant lunch in two weeks, I don't feel all that bad about it.

After paying 2Q taxes last week and in the next couple of weeks I will be paying off the gym personal trainer, it will be a very spendy couple of weeks.

As of this writing I have $120 to last me a until my next paycheck 6 days from now. The weekends seem to be the worst, but in any case, I'm going to be feeling the frugal burn.

I worked out a bit yesterday. Sunday I ran one mile in 16 minutes, walked the next mile, and ran third mile in 18 minutes. Ugh. I was fairly depressed at doing not very well - but it was in the mid 80s. Hot for Seattle. If at first you don't succeed and all that.

It is with great sadness that I've read about the passing of Oscar Meyer and the actress who played Mrs. Slocomb in Are You Being Served? My childhood is slipping away.

Sister sent several pictures of the garden. The tomatoes that we planted on vacay are now about 2 feet high!

As promised, this post is to show off the farmette vegetable garden and all the stuff I had to weed and plant. Sister started a little CSA - she has three people in Milwaukee paying her to grow all this.

Peas in front row, then onion, spinach, lettuce, carrots, beets. Yum!


She's doing it organically, which means a lot of water, weeding, mulching, and compost. She has a couple of tricks for all you vegetable gardening newbies.

1. Double and triple rows. Sister plants one row, then a row 3-4 inches to the left, and a row 3-4 inches to the right. Especially useful if you have dogs that might misstep. If you have one row, missteps can really kill you; with triple rows you can consider missteps a way of thinning plants out.

A couple of triple rows of beets, freshly weeded. Compare this pic with the very last one on the post.


2. Mark your rows. Along with the regular seeding, sister puts in a radish seed every 6-8 inches. The radish seedlings come up in about 3-4 days, marking the row. Radish seeds are cheap and easy so if you really don't like 'em, pull 'em when the seedlings you want really come up. (and give them to us)



3. Plant, water, compost on the row, then mulch between the rows for weed control.



The week we were there we helped plant tomatoes. This picture was taken during the Caddyshack phase of planting.



We dug the holes, put a bit of compost in and mixed it with the soil from the hole, then transplanted tomato seedlings, then watered, then mulched around it. Sister let me finish with our secret way getting great tomatoes without blossom end rot - one Tums (with calcium) slipped into the soil about a foot away from the plant.

4. If your water is cold (ours was), let the water sit in a bucket to warm up for a little while. The seedlings won't go into shock. And let the dog have a bite!



The triple row of beets, a few days after the weeding. They really perked up.

As I said before, DH, Morgan and I took a two week road trip to Wisconsin and back. We wanted to spend as much time as possible at our destination so we drove it in 3 1/2 days getting there, and 3 days getting back.

Novel stuff we noticed (some economic, so it is appropriate for a financial diary)

1. Montana has a speed limit, which is a change from "cautious and prudent" and is now a bit more strictly enforced. We were stopped going 85 in a 75, and given a warning. The trooper confided that it was less a case of stopping speeders and more figuring out how you act when stopped. Calm lead foots get off with a warning.

2. We went through at least 20 construction sites through our route. Minnesota was especially forthright - big signs declared that it was "your stimulus money at work." Can't complain - the roads need work.

3. There are way more wind farms out on the route. We went through at least five. 1 in Washington, 1 in South Dakota, 2 in Minnesota, 1 in Wisconsin.

4. Kitty was well behaved in the car. Whew! We didn't have any problem finding a hotel - a couple hotels did give us a 10$ pet charge. One didn't (thank you, Best Western!). Morgan didn't do well with dogs, though.

5. The less coffee you drink, the fewer rest stops you need. (this one's for DH. )

6. Sister still makes a mean pie crust.

Now for the adventures. We got to the farmette mid-afternoon Tuesday and were promptly given a tour and put to work. Sister is creating a bad-ass several acre organic garden and is running an informal CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) for several people in Milwaukee. By the time I was finished for that week, I had: weeded 2 triple rows of beets, 3 triple rows of carrots, 2 rows of peas, weeded the raspberry patch, helped dig holes for and plant 100 tomato plants, 20 or so pepper plants, planted 1 row of popcorn by hand, scattered calcium pellets over an acre, planted two rows of lettuce, and 2 more triple rows of carrots.

Sister's partner came with the dogs, and they loved to chase things, including kitties. Morgan immediately hid up in upstairs and hung out there. She loved the attic and played princess in the upstairs. When she caught a mouse up there, sister told us that Morgan could come back anytime.

Sister and her partner ahve both done a fantastic job with the farmette - its now a fun party place and has been for the last couple of years, ever since sister decided to leave her job and be at the farmette for weeks at a time.

I showed DH the creek in back of the old property (now public land, owned by the state of WI), and sister and I showed him the other piece of property. Officially we were trespassing so out of country politeness we didn't stay long. It turns out that we sold to a developer who went bust and re-sold the property to the corporate farmer. Not great, but all things considered not bad. We got the best price, and while we don't own it, it is still being farmed.

We also spent the weekend in Milwaukee. Sister gave us the choice between staying with them or staying across the street with their friends who live in a refurbished funeral home. How could we resist? We stayed at the funeral home and got a great tour of the place. As a payback, we helped the owners clean up their computer.

The bad adventure came a couple of Fridays ago. We were still at the farmette, driving home from a Friday night fish fry when DH hit and killed a deer with our car, ripping up the cushmobile's left front bumper. Its still driveable as long as you drive during the day (no left headlight), but the insurance adjuster thinks its close to a total.

My other two projects were to help reconcile what sister spent in the year and a half since I last did that job. I also looked at the last of dad's old receipts and paperwork, determining what to keep and what to toss for tax purposes. In a sense, probate and the estate is supposed to close that door. I mean, how can you audit a dead guy? I was conservative, though, and had them keep the paper for 8 years, but anything pre-2001 I suggested that sister toss.

Pictures - the garden pictures under the next entry....

I call shotgun...


Wind farm and road work combined


The working living room (farmette)


The second living room, taken from the working living room (farmette)


The kitchen (farmette)


The mudroom. The black kitty is NOT Morgan, but Midnight, a two-year old semi feral tomcat. DH nearly got him calm enough to pet, then the dogs came and poof - both he and Morgan disappeared.


East side of the farmhouse. Funny how the paint job only goes so high.


The other piece of property. This year its in corn.


The other piece of property has sheds too. This is one.


The car after the deer kill. I have to look on the bright side. If you see that coming up to you at 75, you'll get out of the way. RIP cushmobile.

DH, Morgan (our cat), and I went for two weeks to the land of my fathers ... aka Oshkosh and Milwaukee WI. Sister has done a lot with the farmette, and we had a number of adventures, most good, one not so much.

More tomorrow!

Saving log - $3 tip box
Spending log - $2 coffee

Turns out that my only non-dividend stock is getting bought out by company that does generate a dividend. Unfortunately, it doesn't have a formal reinvestment program. So one step at a time.

Sister got an offer to get a slightly better price on the solar power the farmette is generating, and the price is retroactive to the beginning. The idea is that we sell all the power, then buy back what we need, instead of using what we generate and selling the rest. There is a setup box involved at a cost of about $800. I figure that with the retroactive pricing from the beginning, we should get about $760 as a bonus. So from that aspect we are nearly at all gravy. However, we are locked into a price for 10 years. If the price of power goes down, then we sit pretty. If power goes up, not good, because we not only are generating cheap power, but we have to buy the power back at the expensive rate.

Next week Saturday, the 21st, is when we go ghostbusting at our offices. 7pm to 11pm, but if something is found (!) we'll stay until 2am. A couple of co workers are really hoping for a near seance. "Maybe it will be (fill in with your fav Seattle founder)."

As for me, I think one of my co workers will bring a big Great Dane that we will nickname Scooby Doo... which mean we'll probably find out the ghost is actually a real estate developer trying to scare the buyers away so he can get a cheap price.

I definitely plan to take notes and pictures, but more for my own purposes. I'm thinking of visiting sister and the farmette in mid-June. As some of you might remember, our farmette has a possible entity also - a man in a fedora going up our second floor stairs. Often the door leading into those stairs would 'pop' open even when firmly latched, then would melodramatically creaak at the end.

Sister tells me that she is nearly done with the kitchen, that it looks fabulous, definitely "not embarrassing". She has two dogs, both shaggy, so with our farmette ghost we can have the Shaggy Doo sequel.

Saving log - $0
Spending log - $8 groceries

Or Mafia kiss, I'm still trying to decide about that. I received a little missive about changes in my Capital One credit card. Many of you have also received it, so you'll know what I got.

24.99% APR.

DH asked me what Capital One was thinking. Its pretty easy - I am a deadbeat, paying my bill monthly. They don't make any money on me anyway, so they might as well hike it up to either clear the decks (get rid of the non-performers like me), or if I keep it, they can lie in wait to pounce when I slip.

Its a little like keeping a fiscal hungry tiger in the backyard. Time to shoot it between the eyes and decline my card. I have until April 17 to do so; by May 15 it will be gone. I have one yearly recurring charge on it that I have to fix and I would rather do that than assume that Cap One will close the account before it gets charged - the odds haven't been on my side.

In other news, sister is in the midst of fixing up the kitchen walls and ceiling at the farmette...now that the floor looks good.

Tuesday
Saving log - $5 tip box
Spending log - $3.50 fresh juice

Wednesday
Saving log - $4 tip box
Spending log - $10 lunch

Its busy at work but I'm making great progress so I bought a treat yesterday and had lunch with the gang today.

Lawyer friend had read my blog and had a question for me: Why don't I count the farmette in my net worth? Let me see...

1. Don't know what the farmette's worth, and really, until I'm bought out or it goes up for sale, not worth it to me to appraise it.

2. And it would 1/2 of an estimate anyway.

3. Treating the farmette like an expense, which it is if I pay half-sies on expenses and taxes and I visit it once every couple of years.

4. Would prefer that my net worth be an underestimate.

After lunch, as we were walking back to work, screenwriter friend found a $10 bill under a parked car. Score for him.

Apologies that I haven't been posting daily - I have an excuse, now I have to look around for the screen and type one handed...

Thursday
Saving log - $0 tip box
Spending log - $18 groceries

Wednesday
Saving log - $0 tip box
Spending log - $8 groceries

Q: So what's the difference between Mike Tyson and Morgan Le Fay, our kitten?

A: Morgan will lick your ear first before she chomps down.

Kitten now sleeps with us on top of the bed, which is good, but the chomp of ears and nose is not the optimum way to wake up after a sound sleep. I've been pushing her away because even though its a kitten phase, its not a habit she should take with her as an adult. After thinking about the problem, two other things are working:

1. Rub a bit of orange peel on my nose and ears before I go to sleep. I like the orange-y smell, but kitty hates it.

2. Keep my hands away from my face as I sleep. Kitten likes to play scary hand, but if you play scary hand in front of your face, your ears and nose are just finger 11, 12, 13.

So far that's been working.

Treated myself by buying 18 oz of blueberries for $5.98.

Sister sent me news that the state of Wisconsin incentive check for installing solar has come: $5324. Along with that news came a picture of the newly installed kitchen floor of the farmette...

also with sister's dogs, and a red-orange accent wall leading to the living room.

Saving log - $0 tip box
Spending log - $0

Yippee. Another no spend day.

Sister emailed me - the kitchen floor of the farmette is nearly done. It really needed that complete renovation. Patches of the now gray 30s linoleum (so old that we got a scare - the tiles might have contained asbestos) were worn through a couple of inches to the subfloor underneath. The times are changin'. We must have been the only project the floor contractor had because they were working our 3K job through two snowstorms and Christmas.

All claws refers to Morgan. I'm going to have to get some thick, kitten claw proof socks because she has a total passion for my orange slippers, my bell bottoms, and my ankles. OW! She uses the scratching post extensively just to hone those little scimitars, but when she gets done honing, apparently only a fresh human ankle will do. If my writing starts to trail off...my blood type is A+.

Saving log - $5 tip box
Spending log - $0

I managed to work out during lunch, or more precisely, before lunch and I brought my own lunch - a ham sandwich - and used a gift card for the coffee, so no money was spent on my part. Nice to make up for the heavy-duty weekend spending. I will be spending tomorrow though.

Sister emailed me. In addition to the flooring, which I totally support, she also wants to replace the windows at the farmette. I support her far less on that project. There are some bad windows, sure, but replace those and wait for next year. The window guys I think are starting to apply some pressure on her. They are interested in a 2 yr contract. I can see that that would help them out more than it would us. It means that we are locked into a price, and if the price of the service rises, great. But what if the price falls? Best to do what absolutely needs to be done and wait until next year. 10K on the farmette is my spending limit for 2009.

The 2008 tax season is here. I got my first 1099 of the season, and at work we got the change-your-403B-withholding email. We can save up to $16,500 for the year in the 403B. This last year, as part of getting into a better tax situation, I hiked up the 403B withholding to the limit, and found that I got used to the much smaller check. Not to mention that this year its the golden opportunity to buy into equity-based mutual funds. I will continue for 2009.

As far as the title of my post - dividing $16,000 into 24 pay periods gave me an answer that made me smile.

Saving log - $3 tip box
Spending log - $0

The gym and brown bag/leftover lunch strategy worked very well. Not planning on going to the gym tomorrow, but I am planning on bringing my lunch again and finishing off several containers of leftovers. I do still have plenty of white turkey breast for turkey salad and turkey soup.

2 funds of my 403B are going to be swapped out for two other funds. There's my tinkering and then there are other people's tinkering. I am still considering moving some of my taxable cash in Vanguard to a Vanguard index fund - however I don't want to do it now because the distributions are on Dec 15 or so. I would be taxed on the distribution if I own it, even if I own it for a day.

Strangely enough, I am getting used to the freakish gyrations of the stock market. 680 points? Yawn. Now it feels if the market only goes up or down by twenty or thirty points one thinks, "why bother running the darn thing?"

All this backdating prognostication is getting to me. Yes, the recession started December 2007. Yes, I remember December 2007...everyone was saying, "no its not a recession, don't even think its a recession, and to say so means you'll trigger a recession." Decided to declare the bad news late, so maybe we'll be out of it by the time we call it? Well, I've got news for you ... this is going to be a nice long recession, we won't get out of it until 2010 at the very earliest. Ha! What do you think about that?

Sister is helping the local economy of Wisconsin out, though. She's going to get the flooring done at the farmette. Yay! The floors are the one thing that badly need repair. I suggested we hold off a bit for some of the contracting jobs until the recession really bit. If the contractor is a bit hungry, they should give you a better deal. At least if you are the only meal in town, they won't blow your project off.

Saving log - $0 tip box
Spending log - $3.62 bagel, coffee + $3.70 decaf, scone

Bummer - the MEHVA fall leaf tour is today, and we made it in time to join the line. The bummer came when we were turned away - they needed one more historic bus and one more driver. First time in 15 years they turned people away. Ah well, the joys of popularity. At least they got a great turnout and paid for their gas.

Found this tidbit in the NYT to send to sister. In Germany, they have 'hay hotels'. Wacky and alternative, but something to consider - I'm sure we'd get a couple of cheap Germans during EAA, which occurs in July. If you are going to sleep in hay in a barn, might just as well do it in the summer. And, we still have the barn and the hay!

Saving log - $4 tip box
Spending log - $8 lunch + $7 clif bars & apple

Another odd effect of slow times - thrift store inventory is being squeezed from both sides. More people are shopping there, but fewer are donating.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/10/business/10thrift.html?_r=...

I really haven't stepped into any thrift stores lately. If the regular retail store has a 60-80% off sale, we're starting to get to thrift store territory.

Put 5K into the farmette and called sister and made her promise that she will mail me the paper grocery bag THAT I KNOW she's put the farmette bills in.

After that, only the irksome. Why does it take so long for some people to get money out of an ATM? I stood in front of the WaMu ATM inside Uwajimaya, waiting... It takes me thirty seconds, probably because I know how much I want and I know I have the money before I approach.

Saving log - $2 tip box
Spending log - $9 lunch

Sister called from the farmette. In the process of either fixing or replacing the garage door on the metal shed at the farmette, and apologized that she didn't update the spreadsheet ... or send me the bills she paid so I can update the spreadsheet. But she loved her birthday presents. Wonder when she will attempt the kitchen floor and the bathroom? Hopefully next year or the year after.

On my third gym session sans trainer. At the end, I told the two trainers doing their paperwork on the side table that it was very weird not making that final stop to sign out and pay for the session. "That's okay," one of the trainers said with a smile, "I can give you a couple to sign out." I've got all the bills - this weekend I'm totalling them up just to see the damage.

I'm thinking about 12K, spread out over 2.5 years.

Speaking of the weekend, I am planning on meeting another Saving Advice blogger face to face this weekend. First time that I've met any of you face to face and I'm very excited! Who is it? Well, I'd like to tell you all but I'd like to ask permission first.

Bwahhahhhahhahhhhahaaa!

Saving log - $6 tip box
Spending log - $1.50 coffee + $7 lunch (for two days)

Sister called. Part of the ditch about 100 yds from the property line (now part of the state of WI) washed out a bit, and there's water seeping into the basement, and sister wants to replant a whole lot of beans ... but everything made it through the flood unscathed. Berlin (20 mi southwest) on the Fox River is still a bit flooded, even now.

The utility company that is buying our excess solar power now wants to send us checks. Means, apparently, that we are generating more than $25 worth of power per month. Sister now is interested in getting the 7 acres certified for organic farming. Seems worthy; its not like our next door neighbor (state of WI) is pumping the ground full of fertilizer, herbicides, and pesticides. It'll just be a repository for native plants - and a generator for "weed" seeds. It'll make weeding a chore.

The other bidness is that I got a bit blindsided to the tune of $85.22 from Capital One. I haven't used the card in over 6 months, when one of my yearly charges got pinged on it. Then, since I haven't been monitoring it like a hawk online (lost track of the username and password) and beforehand I decided to save a tree and not get a paper statement, well it meant Cap One had me for a couple of months of fees.

Lessons learned:
1. Beware the once/yr charges. (Moving that sucker in the next week)
2. Keep up the paper statements even with the online account.

Save a tree indeed. I could have bought and taken care of another tree for $85.

Final order of bidness is WaMu. I'm not a shareholder of it ... although a share could be had for the cost of a latte. Will Whoo Hoo! turn into Boo Hoo? WaMu would say no and would say no until the weekend it failed. So who knows? I have my paycheck in a WaMu checking account, along with a little savings account ... my tip box squeezings go into that. All told, I have about $1500 in WaMu at any one time. Easily FDIC insureable. I'd miss WaMu if they went under, but would figure that they would have the sense to go under early. As in the old saying: Don't panic, but if you are going to panic, panic first. More worried about my bank stock - MI. That stock could be had for a sandwich and latte. Its the difference between an account holder and a share holder.

There has been a lot of press about the floods in IL, IA, and MO, but there's still plenty in WI. Just clicked into the NOAA Flood map for the upper Fox River Valley in Berlin (about 15 mi south of Omro, and Omro is 3 mi west of the farmette).

Now the river level is at Major, 25 yr flood stage.
http://www.crh.noaa.gov/ahps2/hydrograph.php?wfo=mkx&gage=be...

I wonder what is happening at the farmette. I remember the April 1973 flood well - the fields were flooded, but the house was fine and we could get to the road.

Now the fields are owned by the WI DNR to be reclaimed as wetlands, so the fact that they are wet is not so tragic (except for that mosquito repellent dip we'll need before we go outside), but I wonder how close the water is to the farmette in general. No doubt sister's 75 tomato plants are going to be in a world of hurt.

Oh yes, for you new readers out there, farmette = house, barn, sheds, 7 acres of land that sister and I were co-deeded as the final settlement of dad's estate. Pictures of the then dry land are in the "Farmette" category.

Saving log - $3 tip box
Spending log - $1.25 coffee + $10 lunch, snack + $10 grocery

Not much going on, had a nice quiet day.

Watched the I-5 traffic on my way to work. Still heavy, even though we've passed $4 and are gaining on $5. These days, if you can possibly save money by taking the bus, no matter how out of the way, well, why wouldn't you? And now there's the report that if you want to tool around town in a scooter you need an addendum on your license. You need more than that these days, there are still plenty of SUVs tooling around with you on the road. Frankly, I think traffic will get even nuttier before it gets better. All the sane drivers say, "holy crap, who cares who I have to sit next to? I'm saving $500!". That thins the herd a bit, but it leaves the insane drivers, the recalcitrant ones, the ones that didn't get the memo. I see a bit of a difference in parking lots, but out on the roads there is still a lot of denial out there.

Sister gave me an update. The toilet, water heater, and water softener are in at the farmette, but she and her partner stayed in Milwaukee, battling the rains and the flood. Apparently they got 4 inches, had to make sure that the gutters were clean so they could do their job, and their basement was leaking. It could be worse.

The farmette land is low, I wonder if the place got touched by the floods. Darn glad no one's farming most of it - they'd be behind. Knee high by the fourth of July is a milestone and that's only three weeks away.

Saving log - $4 tip box
Spending log - $1.75 coffee + $10 lunch

Arrgh with the Seattle February weather in early June. I woke up cranky. Its one thing to see the overcast, dreary, very rainy February weather in February - its an endurance thing. When the rain comes in June, it just makes you mad.

Day 2 that the deli has been closed. It doesn't look good. I peered into the window - the equipment was still there, along with the table and chair that they set outside for dining al fresco. No one's packed up. Still's a bad sign.

Got caught up with sister. She had left her job three weeks ago to relax and keep up with the farmette. Her projects are the water heater, the water softener, and the furnace. Especially replacing the furnace, both to keep the winter heating bills and the insurance costs down.

Had lunch with the gang - lawyer friend, lawyer friend's partner, screenwriter friend, and we got to asking about compounds. Like the Kennedy compound, the McCain compound, the Bush compound, the Koresh compound. Doesn't anyone have an estate or a house any more? Are we all survivalists or something? We tried figuring out the elements: multiple buildings, a chain link fence, ability to live off the grid, perhaps a gun collection. The other three joked that my little farmette was the closest thing to a compound, to which I noted that the barn, in the shape of a "U" surrounds a concrete pad. I would have a compound inside my compound... a nested compound.

Saving log - $1 tip box
Spendng log - $1.19 coffee + $8 lunch

Nothing financial happened. The only thing interesting during the whole day happened in the morning when I walked through the Greenwood park gates for the bus and saw a raccoon ambling by in the road, unconcerned.

It wasn't a monstrously big one, but grown enough - more like an old teenager, young adult one. But raccoons out in daylight brazen like that meant it could be rabid. I stood still and waited for it to pass by then hop into a culvert on that corner.

Reminded me of other raccoon stories. The family of raccoons we apparently fed by setting a garbage bag outside (this before recycling when the Seattle garbagemen would actually trot into your yard and pick up your trash); the three foot high raccoon picking through the dumpster behind Dick's Drive In on 45th...

And the oldest story of all, when the other three foot high raccoon was trapped in dad's concrete silo, snacking on silage (cow kimchi - chopped, fermented corn stalks, tassels, and leaves). And raccoons are belligerent drunks, too. Whatever you do, don't shoot at a raccoon inside a concrete silo and MISS. Then you have to duck back out and wait for the bullet to stop ricocheting.

Wednesday
Saving log - $30 monthly interest in small accounts
Spending log - $3 bagel, coffee + $14 drugstore + $11 groceries

Stayed at home to greet the plumber. Plumbing got fixed at about 3pm, but I just was not feeling it to go into work for an hour. So I bought some groceries - we had no fresh vegetables in the house, so I picked up the cheap three: carrots, celery, onions.

While I was waiting for the plumber to come, I got a number of financial and gym tasks done: I set up my 2008 Roth ($5K is the maximum this year), I checked out my online Ameriprise account (grandma's trust is in Ameriprise, they've made an account in my name to move it from her to me), transferred $5K into the farmette account, and I put gym routines as little date journals into my PDA. Throughout the year, my trainer wrote out the exercises of the routines that we did on a small pad of paper. This pad of paper is nearly full. When we transfer to a new pad of paper I know the old one will disappear.

Yesterday, sister was online so we did some IMing. She sent the Excel spreadsheet that I made for her in October. I should have remembered to get it while I there, but I didn't so I taught sister how to send attachments.

I suggested she go through her checkbook and bank statements coming from the joint account for the farmette and IM me the transactions so I can update. Turns out we were $350 in the black for 2007 after taxes, electrical upgrade, solar panels, propane, new front door, redoing the milkhouse and foundation. Whew!

But not so whew - at least for sister - is that she hadn't done any of her paperwork to get grandma's trust transferred to her. Still in a serious, serious snit with the cousin, thinking somehow that he's stolen something or is hiding something. Its so bizarre to me why she's stamping her feet. Frankly, she's hurting herself - I've looked at the trust that has been transferred over into my account. Its a little more than what the cousin estimated it would be.

As it is, I now have to at least ask a CPA for advice on my tax situation for 2007. My ship has come in, but my moorage for it is not nearly adequate.

Saving log - $1 tip box
Spending log - $1.84 coffee, milk + 12$ lunch $2 fruit + $21 "happy hour"

Deposited $49 from the tip box to my bank - a good haul. Unfortunately, I managed to spend nearly $40 in the blink of an eye. Two drinks and snacks during happy hour just kills frugality. Liquor really kills any ability to save money. I just have to be thankful I had $25 to spend and no thought of pulling out plastic to dig myself in deeper.

Since DH has access to his family's cabin in Montana and I have access to the farmette near EAA (Experimental Aircraft Association) in Wisconsin, DH and I thought to arrange a trade - sister and her partner could come and visit Montana, and the BIL, a pilot, could use the farmette and visit EAA.

All parties contacted were very agreeable, but it was very interesting that DH's sister and my sister had very similar reactions - DH's sister was thrilled, but asked to remind everyone that the cabin's very primitive w/outhouse, no electricity, etc, while my sister mentioned the bathroom, the kitchen floor, no air conditioning and the fact that they might be sleeping in the same bed that dad died in, but heck...it's free.

Out of everyone, I'm the only person's who has visited both places, tee hee. They're both comparable - each is not for everyone, but for the adventurous, each would give you something to talk about for years.

Now to straighten out the last weird thing about the farmette (at least for now). Last Saturday, sister gave me a paper grocery bag of envelopes, proclaiming, "I am my father's daughter."

Yikes.

That night, I went through the bag, shucking envelopes like oysters. Many were closed, which was depressing. It turns out that about 40% of it was hers but had nothing to do with the farmette.

I sorted into four piles: statements from our farmette bank account, bills that are clearly farmette, incidental letters and info clearly farmette, sister's items.

I then made an excel workbook with three spreadsheets: costs, deposits, summary statement that linked the total costs and total deposits - the number is black if we are in the black, red if we have more bill than deposit. There were two transactions that I had to correlate with sister's checkbook.

This took me all of 45 minutes. We were in the black, the big assumption being that she put everything in the checkbook and the grocery bag.

"Could you at least get one of those file boxes with the handle? At least its swankier than the grocery bag." I chided.

I extracted a promise that sister would send me the spreadsheet, then tell me the totals of the bills so I update. It'll force her to open the mail. (Drat, I should have saved the spreadsheet on my flash drive.)

Man, that bugs me. Sister's not an accountant, doesn't 10-key, and doesn't do audits, but at least open the mail and tally your bills up with a calculator. I'm trying to figure out what sister's so afraid of. I'm worried that I contributed to it a bit by threatening to cut her off. But if you treat your bills like they are going down a rathole, then I have to assume that my money is going down the same rathole.

Money's complicated, but if you tackle it one thing at a time, its not bad. I was afraid, once, when I had more commitments than money. The first step is being able to face the bad news.

Friday
Saving log - 3$ tip box
Spending log - 1.84$ coffee, milk + 7$ curry

I put $3 in my tip box for a later deposit, and deposited the $95,000 check in the bank. The $3 transaction was more satisfying to me as the $95,000 one. The 3$ transaction was all due to me, the $95,000 was the result of a long road. The proceeds of dad's estate are still unreal to me, as is now my new net worth. What to do with all that money? It would seem that I have an amount to do something good with, but definitely not enough to do nothing with. My ship has come in, all right, but its green sails are still powered by the winds of doubt.

Sister and her partner seem to have a plan for some of sister's share - they are interested in fixing up the farmette and using it as a weekend getaway. I was surprised to find out that sister's partner was especially happy with that, telling me that she found that she can really relax at the farmette. Sister's partner especially surprised me in telling me that sister is the frugal one, the one who trying to curb things, saying "we can't afford that" to projects, and not do everything at once.

But as for me, I'm not so interested in starting a business, have no kids to put through college, no strong desire to pursue holidays, toys, or hobbies. Retirement awaits, sure, but should everything have a 25 year time horizon? And if you don't have a habit for spending, you'll probably save and save and save even when you get into your 60s, all to create even more money for non-existant heirs.

This is a little tour of the grounds, especially the pieces that now the Wisconsin Dept of Nat Resources (WIDNR) owns. Warning - lots of fields that all kinda look the same. You just can't make that composition interesting.

The zoning situation, in a sign.


This is due east. The clear area is now WIDNR to be restored to wetland. They've sprayed for weeds and have seeded.


This is southeast, taken from the road. The weeds are from the road. The soft gray area in the background is the WIDNR's previous purchase of our eastern neighbor's land 15 years ago. Its a sign of things to come.


From the south, through the weeds. The foreground weeds are all ours, BTW.


The property line between us and WIDNR cuts close to the solar panels. They have a bit of "our" pasture. We are on the left, WIDNR is on the right, and yes, it sure looks greener on that side.


Sister in our weeds.


View from the southwest.


On the west edge, we discovered that our property line is about 10 ft farther than our fence line. So we own that 10 ft of grass past the fence. Its what caused that slightly increased acreage that freaked us out at the final step.


A picture of the corporate farm that sister despises. They were kind of interested in the property, but we were less interested in selling to them than to the WIDNR.


Fun shot of one of the barn kittens. He looks so much like my dead Augie that I just about cried.

I know you are curious, so as threatened, pictures of the farmette. These are shots of the house and barn. Warning - long, long, long, with lots o' pictures.

House - facing west. This is the side facing the barn, which we will see later. The foundation got recently fixed.


House - facing east. This is the side facing the garden and the property now owned by the Wisconsin Dept of Natural Resources. We'll see that later, too. We never ever used that porch.


This is the north side of the barn and the now fixed up milkhouse. The red barn door is now new, and there aren't many diamond windows around on barns these days. The house would be behind you and to your left.


Inside of the old shed on the east side of the barn - all you would do is take a few steps to the left of the previous picture. This old, 20 ft shed contained the old, copper-bottomed still my grandfather (father's side) used to make whiskey during Prohibition.


This is the south side of the barn. The barn is actually in the shape of an upside down U - The milk cows were generally led in the central courtyard before milking and went there during rainstorms. Nowadays, the solar panel stands proud on the left. Its generating power - kind of fun watching the inverter go in reverse, sending power back to the utility.


Close up of the three poles. We installed three poles in case sister and I wanted to install two more solar panels. Under the three poles lay a trenched copper cable which delivers the power to the farmette. In the background, the southwest corner of the house is peaking through the trees.


Close up shot of the back end of the solar panel.


Close up of the courtyard where the cows lay. The flooring - ahem, compost - is like scotch: very well aged.


This is the south west corner of the barn. That little blue-green thingee sticking out is the automatic manure spreader - how cow manure got out of the barn.


Grounds and fields next.